The TAM London 2010 live blog

Welcome to the TAM London 2010 live blog! From Saturday morning I'll be bringing you regular updates, audio clips, photos and maybe even the odd video clip from The Amazing Meeting, a two day celebration of science and critical thinking.

NB: This page does not update automatically - who do you think I am, the BBC? Oh, and the live video is back for the last two sessions! Watch along here.

Sunday: Day Two

16:32: Well that's it from me for TAM London 2010. It's been a fun two days, and tomorrow I'll do a quick round-up of any blog posts and things that people do. In the meantime, I'm off to the pub. Take care, and blog responsibly. Night!

16:20: Moore speaks in a sort of long, rambling, surrealist and humorous style that's very hard to live blog, and in order to taunt me even further he's now going to launch into a poem. "The word cock appears half way through, and it's okay to laugh at that point," he explains. He's a joy to watch.

16:14: Moore, captured by Kelly Haddow:

Alan Moore

16:10: Moore: "I can see that you have every reason in the world to be outraged by the advance of the British fundamentalist religious right."

16:06: Okay, apparently it's just Alan Moore.

16:02: It's the final session, and in just an hour or so I can finally put down my laptop, and wrap my bleeding and calloused fingers around a pint of cold beer. Coming up shortly, Josie Long interviews Alan Moore, the write of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and other stuff you can find on his Wikipedia cage.

15:21: Right, time for a quick break and we'll be back around 10 to 4 for Josie Long interviewing Alan Moore.

15:17: Myers: It's easy to vilify the internet, but if you look at the statistics, the creationist blogs are doing pathetically. Even a mediocre science blog beats them for traffic.

15:12: My blogging colleague Evan Harris asks a good question, and makes a point that we should refuse to accept the 'militant' slur. Myers: "What happens is a sneaky distortion of terms." For instance, Myers explains, Nisbet attacks him as a 'bomb-thrower', which is a way of linking his rhetoric with violence.

15:09: Time for the Q&A then. I'll be honest, the quality of questions over the weekend has been mixed. In response the the first, which was so dull I've forgotten it, Myers concocts a gem of a one-line manifesto: "What we want is a culture of self-criticism."

15:01: PZ Myers speaks about this disturbing passage by Daniel Spratlin. "These people are everywhere in America. They are sociopathic. What do you say to people like this? We should be angry."

"I don't (nor do the majority of confessing Evangelicals) believe homosexuality to be abhorrent because my "religion says so." Rather, I believe it to be so because God says so.

"I have no doubt that America will eventually accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. Nor do I have a problem with it. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not equal to American values. Never has been and never will be. This world has to be destroyed in the end and I welcome it. That doesn't mean, however, that I won't stand firm in my position and continue to shout.

"Do I want homosexuals to "feel isolated and ashamed to the point of suicide"? Of course not. I want them to feel isolated and ashamed to the point of repentance."

14:58: Here's the Ray Comfort banana video just referenced by PZ Myers, in which he spectacularly fails to explain how bananas disprove evolution:

14:53:"At conception it's just a slimy ball with wiggly sperm all around it, and it's not even as nice as it sounds."

14:48: Myers: "I'm really into embryos.... the younger the better."

14:45: Myers gets controversial: "The Earth is not 6000 years old, it was not formed in 4004 BC."

14:42: Another update from The Pod Delusion who have interviewed DJ Grothe, President of JREF. Listen below:

14:40: Myers identifies as a 'Gnu Atheist': "We're committed to the power of the evidential narrative. We like stories, but what we like about stories is that they're backed up by some kind of supporting evidence."

14:37: PZ Myers: "We are atheists because we have a set of positive values that we hold."

14:34: Myers: "Do be a Richard!" or "Be the best dick you can be!"

14:34: Myers on "don't be a dick": "Telling people not to do things is very Old Testament, we should have prohibition. And then of course 'dick' is so informal and rude."

14:32 Myers: "We shouldn't be gratuitously obnoxious, we should be purposefully obnoxious."

14:32: PZ Myers on stage...

14:28:Matt Nisbet gets a mention, with PZ echoing my criticism of him which I'll repeat now "the irony of Nisbet is that someone who claims to be an expert communicator is so bad at communicating."

14:26: Myers' talk is going to be about tone, feeding into the tedious debate about how nasty/nice people are/aren't and what effect it does/doesn't have, most of which is evidence-free heat rather than useful light.

14:24: And that's that, until this. Next up, PZ Myers, who you know from Pharyngula, the most popular science blog on the internet.

14:18: Linehan mocking the PCC (the UK Press Complaints Commission) - "'we will listen to your concerns' - yes, but you won't do anything about it."

14:13: Another good question from the audience about the role of comedy in skepticism. Linehan replies that it's a good way of avoiding being too shrill, which I think is true. It's also a great way to reach a broader audience, in my own opinion.

14:11: Linehan responding to a question on piracy: "Piracy has been amazing. Every time I release a DVD or something like that I immediately get lots of people from America or Australia asking when it'll be released. I don't think 'piracy' is a good word, I think 'sharing' is better."

Jon Ronson, who is a journalistic hero of mine, has a good way of taking questions from the audience, and adding his own bits that take them to another level.

14:07: We're watching a video of some sort of small human (baby? toddler?) bashing it's head against a cupboard while laughing, which Linehan suggests people say is the "most pointless thing on the internet." Then someone hijacks Youtube and the projector and suddenly we're watching evil babies. Linehan "I find this interesting because it's the first time in history parents have been able to do this, and compare their experiences with other parents, and we're talking about it like it's a load of stupid shit."

14:04: Ronson and Linehan have both noted that events like 9/11 demonstrated a need for skepticism and a skeptical movement to challenge prevailing narratives. Linehan "It's frightening that skepticism has to be a movement, because you're just arguing that reality is reality. What a waste of energy, in a way."

14:01: Linehan on Jan Moir: "All people were pointing out there was bad manners." But criticizes people who go to far, and hurl abuse. Linehan was concerned by some of the Pope responses too.

13:59:"We all need to be very very careful of our internet rights," Linehan points to e.g. ability of protestors to document police protests, and people in general to hold authorities to account. "It feels to me like democracy, and when people start to fight back against it it's because what we had before this wasn't quite democracy, and now these people are scared."

13:55: What I'm getting from this talk is that Linehan spends a lot of time laughing at silly things on the internet. I wish I was Graham Linehan.

13:54: Linehan giving a lot of love to the "Jesus dubbed" series, which you can see here at Youtube. Points out that it's funnier than most sketch shows, and suggest that the BBC are cowards who wouldn't make it. "I don't understand why people don't think internet media is exciting."

13:50 Linehan agrees with Clay Shirky, and says that the internet has revealed that everyone wants to be creative, and they don't necessarily want to be creative to make money.

13:46: Graham Linehan and Jon Ronson are animated...

Graham Linehan and Jon Ronson

13:45: Nerd love for Twitter...

Ronson: "Twitter is turning the internet lovely."

Linehan: "The internet used to be like hanging out in a bad area at night, you walk over to a nice lady and get mugged by pop-ups. And then Twitter came along and it just sorted things out very easily. For instance the mad bastard problem is fixed by the block button. And the fear of the block button means that people are very polite."

12:41: In an unexpected twist, it turns out that Graham Linehan is being interviewed by Jon Ronson, who hopefully will get the hapless comedy writer to elaborate and magnetism, and his evangelical Christianity.

13:36: So we're back for the penultimate session, featuring the creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, Graham Linehan. There is, possibly, a live video stream above, but it's been up and down today faster than a kangaroo on a spring, so... well, just don't moan at me.

13:29: Before we get under way with Graham Linehan in a couple of minutes, I'm sad to say that Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractals, passed away yesterday at the age of 85. He was a legendary figure in Mathematics, and his name will be remembered for probably as long as humans can still count.

13:27: Well I'm back after a frantic lunch and a couple of fly-by interviews for podcasts and things. As always, drinks, snacks, and hugs gratefully received at the blogging table on the rear platform.

12:35: Right, time for lunch - we'll be back at half one with Graham Linehan!

12:33: Minchin: "When you're an empiricist you almost end up fetishizing good logic and good information, but I have to come back to 'what's the harm'"

12:26: Fry: "If there are creators, it's evident that they are as capricious, mean spirited, (insert long stream of adjectives) as we are." (Sorry, it's very hard transcribing Stephen Fry in full flow!)

12:24: Fry talks briefly about secularism with reference to atheism, suggesting more emphasis should be placed on the former, and by inference freedom of religion and the separation of church and state,

12:22: Fry: "I was accused of being rude to the Pope, of being xenophobic... by the Daily Mail."

12:20: A couple of photos for you, of Tim Minchin...

...and Stephen Fry.

12:18: Minchin: "It's almost as if there's nothing behind the language. It's just the language." Extremely true, terms like 'energy' or 'boosting' are often meaningless.

12:18: Fry observes that the fascinating thing about quackery is the way that it appropriates science. The invention of galvanization, discovery of radium, etc., each resulted in an explosion of associated woo.

12:15:Minchin: "Belief is so wrapped up in language, you can't separate the belief from the language, like the word 'healing' or 'energy'."

12:13: I'm wondering if it's possible for Fry to speak for more than five minutes without breaking into a definition. Although to be fair, every one is fascinating.

12:12: Fry: "It's such an insult to what the sense of nature is to have no sense of wonderment towards it." It's a comment that echoes a theme repeated often this weekend, that belief in magic and quackery cheapen nature.

12:11: Minchin: "Science is a very humble approach."

12:09: Fry: "We're not rationalists, the crucial thing is to be empirical. Let's test it. Constructing good tests is one of the most creative things people can do."

12:08:Uri Geller is getting a lot of mentions at this conference, which is unfortunate because I spent most of yesterday spelling his name 'Gellar'.

11:32: And I'm back, sorry about that, I'll bring a clone next year. Rebecca Watson is now interviewing Melinda Gebbie, who is talking about the male-oriented nature of pornography.

10:20: Right then, I have to dash to the green room to get a microphone and then you have basically an hour of nothing very interesting happening. Enjoy! Back at about 11:20 I guess.

10:17: Grothe (paraphrasing): "There are hundreds of skeptics groups in the States, and a proliferation of regional conferences." Similarly now in the UK we have dozens of groups, and regional conferences like QED springing up to complement TAM.

10:09: A quick warning, coming up at 10:40 there's a panel of skepticism and the media. Unfortunately, I'm on it, and people might notice if I'm typing on a laptop on stage, so from about 10:30 I'll be disappearing for 40 minutes or so.

10:08:DJ Grothe suggests a good definition of skepticism is "ordinary common sense." I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced with that definition.

10:06: Here's DJ Grothe, explaining that skepticism is more than just a hobby or a club, but a wider cause.

And a shot of the 950-strong audience.

The 950-strong audience at TAM London

10:01:DJ Grothe is on stage for his talk. The President of JREF announces that the proceeds from TAM London will be used to fund skepticism in the UK.

More of that in the coming weeks, but the big question for me will be how well JREF can build relationships with the grassroots community here in the UK - the thriving ecosystem of podcasts, blogs, Skeptics in the Pub groups, other event organizers, etc, that Ben Goldacre paid tribute to in his acceptance speech yesterday.

09:57: While the Q&A heads into the more arcane areas of quantum mechanics, here are a couple of photos from last night's awards. First up, winner of the grassroots skepticism award Rhys Morgan:

Rhys Morgan collect his award from James Randi.

And another shot of The Amazing (not to mention indefatigable) Randi:

09:52:Marcus Chown taking questions from the audience now. The current question is somebody who basically just wants to give their opinion to the audience, and can barely be arsed to add a rising inflection.

09:51: Chown now rocking out to Bowie on stage. Apologies for the slightly slow updates - I've been writing a brief talk I'm giving in an hour or so plugging the Guardian Science Blogs, as well as searching for a vacant loo and trying to coax the gods of the internet out to play.

09:38: Chown "1% of the static on your TV comes from radiation left over from the Big Bang." Another 4.2% is generated by Simon Cowell.

09:36:AbrasiveShrub on Twitter: It's so early and I need coffee and OH GOD THE WINE WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA. #TAMLondon Yes. Please bring caffeine and headache pills to the blogging table.

09:34: Chown quotes the "most profound statement on time" by George W. Bush: "I think we can all agree the past is over."

09:30: Chown: "The concept of past, present and future appear in none of our fundamental understandings of reality" - they're all relative to travel. Fortunately we don't move very fast, so we don't see the mind-bending effects of this.

09:29: Chown: "The laws of physics do not rule out time travel." However, you have to move through space, and you can't go back in time to before you built your time machine.

09:24:Chown: "You age more slowly on the ground floor of a building than on the top floor." This is because gravity is stronger nearer the Earth, and we can even measure the difference in the flow of time between different steps on a staircase. TO THE BASEMENT!

09:22: Speaking of photos, here's a beautiful photo of Tim Minchin's performance last night, in which he sang an array of new material for us. And swore a bit.

09:18: And here's Chown in front of the aforementioned picture, courtesy of Kelly Haddow:

Marcus Chown stands in front of a photo of the Sun taken at night, through the Earth.

09:12: Marcus is going to list his "top ten most bonkers things about the universe", controversially starting from 10, and counting down to 1. Number 10 is a picture of the Sun taken down through the Earth at night, achieved by imaging neutrinos passing through the Earth. That is pretty bonkers.

09:08:Marcus Chown arrives on stage for our first talk, which may be streamed live above. We're treated to a rendition of Rocket Man, sadly not performed by Chown.

09:03: So here we are, Richard Wiseman kicks off Day Two at the ungodly hour of nine in the morning. Pass the aspirin please.

Marcus Chown will be next up, followed by DJ Grothe. I'm told we'll have some live video commencing shortly, so I'll just sort that out for you now.

Saturday: Day One

17:44: And that's it (no, really this time!) for Day 1! Tim Minchin is debuting Storm later, but that's the end of my eight hours of live blogging exploits for today. See you all at 9am tomorrow! I'm off to the bar.

17:39: The second award is a grassroots award, and it goes to, brilliantly, 15-year-old Rhys Morgan. You can read more about his story here. He receives a standing ovation from the crowd, and deserves it.

17:38: Ben's speech remarks on the massive growth of the skeptical movements, declaring that "the nerds shall inherit the Earth."

17:37: So, the first award is for Outstanding Achievement in Skepticism in the Professional Category, which goes to a sadly absent Ben Goldacre, who nonetheless comes to us via video.

17:34: Oh no wait, I lied! There are a couple of awards to hand out.

17:33:And that's it for Day 1! Tim Minchin is debuting Storm later, but that's the end of my eight hours of live blogging exploits for today. See you all at 9am tomorrow! I'm off to the bar.

17:26: We're at the Q&A now.

Ince: "Have you ever had anything on the JREF Million Dollar challenge where you've thought, 'you know what, actually this might be a little tricky'?"

Randi: "Nope."

17:24:Carmen D'Cruz tweets: "W00t! Andy Nyman just kissed me on the cheek!" Nobody has kissed me on any of my four cheeks yet. Pah.

17:21: Speaking of which, here's a video of Randi debunking Popoff, well worth a watch.

17:19: Randi: Last year, Peter Popoff made over a million dollars year more than he was making when Randi exposed him on the Johnny Carson show. "Where is the justice?"

17:16: One of the great things about watching Randi is how visibly moved he is by the plight of the victims he seeks to protect in some small way. He recalls how he overheard a women telling her friend that she had to give all the money she had to an evangelist, or else God might not notice. Sheesh.

17:12: Randi describes his exposure of Peter Popoff, a psychic famously caught receiving information from his wife via a concealed ear-piece. He makes the comment that aside from deceiving them, the psychic appeared to actually despise some of their audience.

17:04: On the subject of Joe Power, it's worth reading this excellent blog-post by Michael Marshall, exploring some of his extraordinary behaviour in recent years.

17:02: Ince on psychic Joe Power recalls his friend was thrown out for giggling uncontrollably after Power opened the gig with the gambit, "I'm getting a Dave."

17:00: Randi: "Education doesn't necessarily make you smart. It just makes you educated."

16:59:DrShroom asks: "Is it me, or does Randi look like Darwin in profile? #TAMLondon" I reckon so, but I'm also short-sighted and roughly three miles from the stage.

16:56: Two personal points. 1) It astonishes me how Uri Gellar maintained his spoon-bending fame for so long. 2) It is unspeakably annoying that Youtube videos are 480 pixels wide, and the Guardian column width is 460 pixels. Fuuuu....

16:51: Randi is recalling his famous appearance with Gellar on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. Here's a Youtube video of it...

16:46: Ince ponders the futility of Randi's work in the face of the continued (and annoying) presence of people like Uri Gellar. Randi points to the steady stream of little victories - some people are persuaded, and the important thing is to inform people, to expose them to alternative ways of looking at something.

16:44: Randi relates an early experience as a youngster, of exposing a psychic who was doing 'billet-reading', using the one-ahead trick. There's a nice Wikipedia article about it here.

16:40: Ince asks Randi when he realized that the art of illusion could be used by charlatans. Randi relates the story of a 'healing' preacher, and understanding the psychological tricks involved from his own experience as an illusionist.

16:37: Photo time! Kelly Haddow has a couple of great shots of Ince interviewing Randi, with Wiseman creeping into the frame:

16:24: We're having a quick tea break here after another marathon session, up next Robin Ince introduces James Randi, which promises to be a treat. I'm guessing it'll be starting around half past, as the last panel overran slightly.

15:57: Allen Green: "When cats complain, they complain of herding skeptics." Singh continues by pointing out that the more coordination skeptics have, the bigger impact we can have.

15:51: Harris: Politicians respond to media embarrassment. Making them look ridiculous can be a good way of effecting policy change.

15:48: A considerable amount of people here from Europe, almost out-numbering the Brits, which is brilliant.

15:45: Simon Singh has announced a new skeptical campaign, which will be run by Alan Henness and Maria McLachlan. The details are here (warning, hastily formatted churnalism!): The Nightingale Collaboration.

15:32:Simon Singh up now, fresh from his libel victory. He's keen to push activism projects in the next year, and cites the success of campaigns against homeopathy and Miracle Mineral Solutions in 2010.

15:30: Allen Green suggests that alternative med and psychics, etc., can be low-hanging fruit. While I'm not sure I agree with that, I would emphasize his wider point, that skepticism can be applied to much wider policy areas (sexual health, economics, politics, social policy and so on).

Tredinnick's passion for "healthcare research" landed him in trouble during the expenses scandal last year, in which he was caught claiming £700 for "computer software and consultancy to investigate whether astrology can be linked to alternative medicine."

Protesting his innocence, he explained: "There are aspects of this such as plant cycles, the tides, that are linked to the moon. That's a fact of life, and there is a school of thought that says the moon affects other things as well. It's easy to make fun of me over this but the fact is there is a link."

Indeed, Tredinnick's views go further. In a Commons debate on Complementary and Alternative Medicine last year he made the extraordinary claim that "... at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective." One wonders if Tredinnick wraps himself in wool and plaster at every full moon, lest a stray paper cut cause his blood to drain completely from his body.

Tredinnick is also a passionate advocate of homeopathy, and has filed a string of Early Day Motions in an effort to raise support for magical homeopathic remedies in parliament. EDMs are listed with their signatories on the internet, providing a handy guide to the identity of the more credulous and ill-informed MPs.

15:25: David Allen Green: "Skeptical blogging is in an extraordinarily good state." I'd tend to agree, obviously. He cites the ability of skeptics to link to sources, something which seems to be beyond many mainstream publications, and also highlights the speed of blogging, something I'm brutally aware of today.

15:25:David Allen Green (the blogger formerly known as Jack of Kent) up now, getting cheers for refusing to inflict Powerpoint on people, and defaming Uri Gellar.

15:23: Some more photos, the first is Tracey Brown...

...and then Evan Harris.

Erstwhile MP Evan Harris.

15:20: Harris, MP-in-waiting, has a pop at David Tredinnick, an MP who as far as I can tell represents the constituency of Narnia, and believes that moon phases can affect surgery.

15:15Evan Harris is up, making the point that changing policy is different from convincing the public, or arguing with opponents. Which is a good point.

15:12: So the panel consists of Evan Harris, David Allen Green, and Simon Singh, which is an interesting if rather libel-heavy line-up. I've been for a quick pee, but I couldn't find a shower, so floor it was. Stay away from the blogging table for a bit. Actually no, bring drinks and snacks.

15:04: It is hygienic to pee in the shower.

15:03: A word of warning. General panels about blogging and activism tend to annoy me because they're often either inane or wrong. But this one seems to have a decent bunch of people, so we'll see.

15:02: So, here's a panel about skeptical activism, introduced by Sense About Science director Tracey Brown. Sense About Science are of course the organization who have orchestrated and funded recent campaigns against homeopathy like 10:23, or at least they are if you're a deluded nitwit.

15:00:Via James O'Malley of The Pod Delusion comes this interview with James Randi!

14:52: All this talk about Christians is leading some on Twitter to question why there isn't more talk about Islam so far. This of course satisfies Robbins' Law of Religious Discussion: As any discussion about problems with Christianity continues, the likelihood of someone demanding people talk about Islam as well approaches 100%.

I get this a lot, and I have two standard responses which Kirby echoes. Firstly, this is a Christian nation, hence we discuss it more. Secondly, and a related point, problems with Islam have very little impact on my life in the UK.

14:50: The Christian Party have an innovative approach to tackling climate change, according to Kirby - they plan to reinstate the observance of the Sunday Sabbath. The resulting drop in people doing stuff will of course drop carbon emissions massively.

The Christian Party has an innovative approach to policy-making that can be summed up as "what does the Bible say?" This is taken to such extremes that all taxes – VAT, income tax, corporation tax, and so on – would be set at 20%, apparently because this is what the pharaohs of Egypt were told to set their taxes at in Genesis.

Abortion is obviously a big fat no, while the party adopts a zero-tolerance policy on drug abuse (though not, presumably, on the drug that is in Communion wine). Having teased the Jeremy Clarkson vote with promises of raising the speed limit to 90mph, the Christian Party brushes it aside with a surprising focus on the environment.

In terms of education, under the Christian Party children would be taught chastity until marriage, and creationism would be restored to its rightful place in the national curriculum. If that all sounds good to you, then you're probably reading the wrong column. Shoo!

14:36: According to Kirby, The Christian Party believe that "the fact that we're not allowed to hit children any more is the root of all crime in society." Which may or may not be true, but I don't really see them as representing mainstream Christianity.

14:30: Time for our next speaker, Paula Kirby, who is involved with the Richard Dawkins Foundation I believe. In a surreal twist, the slides have now been replaced with live video of her talk, of the sort you may or may not to be able to see in the 'live stream'.

I've finally been given a schedule by a helpful photographer, so I can tell you that we have a panel of "Skeptical Activism" at 15:05, and then Robin Ince will be interviewing James Randi at quarter past four.

14:27 Live Video: People have been asking what's going on with the live video. It seems that some talks will be shown live, but not all of them - I've not been told which unfortunately - the video is all done by TAM London, not us.

14:18:Karen James is just up doing a pitch for the Beagle Project, which aims to rebuild Darwin's old ship, sail it around the world, and disprove evolution for good. Or at least two of those things. You can see the project website here.

14:10: Another quick reminder, you can follow the conference on Twitter using the hashtag #tamlondon, and you can harrass me at @mjrobbins.

14:05: Nyman: Don't check your phone in a theatre, even discretely, the glow is hugely obvious. That means you. YOU.

14:02: Q&A begins, and someone has asked the Lottery question! "What were you trying to achieve?" The answer from Nyman is interesting (and this is a bit cobbled together from a longer quote):

"If Channel 4 can get 12 headlines a year, it ticks a box for them. On the one hand you have to acknowledge your audience's intelligence, and then it becomes 'well what do you want them to go away and think it is'."

As near as I can interpret Nyman's full reply, their aim was just to leave the audience thinking, but also to generate a bit of a 'buzz'. Which worked I guess.

13:59: Nyman: "Theatre's expensive and a lot of the time it's really fucking boring, so I want them to go away not feeling that."

13:57: More from the mythical Green Room, which I've learned is guarded by a Minotaur with the head of Brian Blessed. Here are Jonathan Ross...

...and Tim Minchin!

13:53: Much of Wiseman's interview with Nyman is photo-and-anecdote based, which makes it a little tricky to blog here. So here's a a photo of the guys:

Richard Wiseman interviewing Andy Nyman

13:51: So Nyman is one of the brains behind Derren Brown's various tricks and shenanigans, currently describing how audiences need to be left to make up their own minds about these sorts of things. Wonder if anyone will ask about the Lottery stunt...

13:45: More controversy, this time about the food laid on, which was so good I went across the road to Marks and Spencer. Sym Roe tweets: "Pathetic food at the Hilton for #TAMLondon if your veggie. Really not impressed at all, are you listening @TAMLondon?" Yes we are, and you'll have no food at all if you don't start using your apostrophes correctly.

13:42: So we're underway, and first up we have actor and magician Andy Nyman, who's being interviewed by our host Richard Wiseman.

13:38: I've been told by the powers-that-be that we need more balance to offset the general skeptical and atheist tone of this live blog, so here's a picture of the Pope.

The Pope, from Adam Rutherford's slides.

13:30: While we wait, here's a photo of fellow Guardian writer Adam Rutherford, mid-flow. It is literally the most flattering photo I could find (after I deleted all the better ones from Kelly Haddow's hard drive).

13:15: Apparently things are resuming at half past one, although I've no idea who's speaking as the schedule is blank. Apparently Randi is giving a press conference now about nothing in particular, and I've resorted to Tweeting to try and find out where the green room is, as so far my uber-pass has been defeated by the fact that The Hilton is basically like a labyrinth, but with fewer monsters.

12:30:LUNCH! My pass says "Access All Areas" on it, so I may try to find some interesting stuff. Or maybe just some food.

12:22: Rutherford (paraphrasing): I challenge all of you to find an Alpha course and do it. You'll find out more about Christianity works, and see what happens in a church when people go out of the way to convert you. You'll see how people succumb to the message. But more than that, since it's an open forum, you have the opportunity to challenge people.

12:18: Rutherford: Is Alpha homophobic? "Alpha welcomes all comers, but homosexuals can be healed..."

12:14: Rutherford on Alpha's leader: I'm suspicious of people in power, doubley suspicious when they're nice, and tripley (sic) suspicious when they have jam on their crotch.

12:11: Rutherford says that Alpha is converting one brand of Christian into another... essentially targeting the sort of disenfranchised Christians who don't really do church any more, particularly in the educated middle classes.

12:10: Rutherford is clearly reading the live blog on stage "The Lord of the Rings is Boring. It's basically just walking." Amen!

12:06: So Adam Rutherford spent some time on the Christian 'Alpha' course as part of a journalistic investigation. Upon joining he was apparently sent two books - The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia. Coincidentally, both have been turned into crap films in recent years.

Yes that's right people, I said LotR was crap.

12:04Glasgow Skeptics in the Pub have sent their representative Ian Scott to the blogging table with a large Dairy Milk bar. More people need to follow their example. Drinks especially appreciated.

12:00Adam Rutherford in response to Alpha's "Is this it?" slogan: "Yes this IS it and it's fucking awesome!"

11:58: Bizarrely the hall are now reciting the Lord's Prayer. Someone calls out that they've seen the light. I'm near the door.

11:54: Rutherford: A survey by Pew Research showed that atheists and agnostics are amusingly the most knowledgeable group of people about religion. I've Googled it for you...

11:51:Adam Rutherford is up... "I'm going to talk to you about Jesus." Mixed response...

11:50: Last word to Cory Doctorow: "If we give John Lennon another 20 years of copyright, how many new records will we get?"

11:48: Doctorow in action... is it just me, or has he got a bit of an Elvis Costello thing going on there?

Cory Doctorow in action.

11:43: The first big controversy of the day concerns the lack of a morning coffee break. After talks by Blackmore, Dawkins and Doctorow, we still have Adam Rutherford to go... rebellion is in the air.

11:37: Question: What's the evidence that people who consume pirated material then go on to buy more stuff?

Doctorow's reply, in a nutshell, is that it's complicated - people might share stuff with their friends, who may then buy it, and so on.

Doctorow says that the primary consideration should be what is the cost for the anti-piracy measures proposed. Also claims piracy is 'progressive', in that it has a bigger effect on the bigger/richer acts. Bit of a bald assertion maybe?

11:34: Doctorow: "DRM is like saying you can't take your book off an ikea bookshelf & put it on the MFI one you also own"

In other news, the toilets at The Hilton are amazing, I could live in them.

11:30: A Q&A has broken out, the first question is a bit arcane, something about ACT. Don't have time to Google...

11:28: Doctorow (paraphrasing): "Youtube produces 20 hours of video footage per minute, why should it be shut down to protect people producing 20 hours of footage per summer." To be fair, most of Youtube is full of tedious adolescents.

11:21:Jon Treadway: "I want to know where I can buy a cheap knock off version of @doctorow's suit. It appears to be made of barcodes or sheet music #TAMLondon" Any ideas?

11:16: Doctorow (paraphrasing): "We know for a fact that we can have a copyright system for fashion design which doesn't ban copying." In China "where the world's factories are," 'real' branded clothes are often made in the same factories as rip-offs.

11:14:"Yesterday's pirates are today's admirals" - Doctorow competing with Dawkins now for sound-bite of the day.

11:07:Kelly Haddow has dropped more pictures on my desk! See Richard Dawkins...

Richard Dawkins believes evolution should be at the core of education.

...and Richard Wiseman.

Richard Wiseman, the host of TAM London. Look into his eyes.. not around his eyes...

11:06: Cory Doctorow is talking about copyright, and declares that not all artists can expect to have a comfortable middle-class income - that's never happened in history. Instead, the question is how we support the best among them.

11:00: We have live video! See above.

10:55: Next up, Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing and tech writing fame, and boy did he start loud. I'm about three miles from the stage, and I'm wincing.

10:52: So that's the end of Richard Dawkins' talk. While I'm not sure I agree completely with his theme that evolution should be at the core of general education, it was an interesting hook from which to talk about the way that evolution crops up in an array of subjects, from science to engineering, literature, mathematics, medicine, computing and many others. Dawkins argues that evolution is, in essence, a multi-disciplinary subject.

10:48: Dawkins: "How much of what we know about life is peculiar to this particular sample [on Earth]." Dawkins believes wherever there is life, there will be genetics, as Darwinian evolution is the only process capable of generating a diversity of life. "Is sex obligatory?"

10:43: Dawkins: "If more of our political masters understood statistics, the world would be a better place." Amen.

10:41: Dawkins: "Evolution is becoming a part of Computer Science," due mainly to our quest to understand and deal with the information contained in our DNA. It also turns out that Sewell Wright may have once erased a blackboard with a guinea-pig, although that might be apocryphal.

10:38: I'm trying to get you a picture of Dawkins in-talk, but basically every inanimate object in the world hates me today.

10:37: A nice analogy from Richard Dawkins explaining the evolution of flight. In aircraft engineering, there is a trade-off between stability and maneuverability, with more agile craft requiring more computing power to manage their less-stable flight. Similarly, among species of pterodactyls we can see the same trade-offs. THIS IS PROOF OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN (not really).

10:31: Quote I missed via Karen James on Twitter: "Dawks: if we held hands with our mothers, and they with theirs, back to our common ancestor with chimps, the chain would only be ~200miles. *goosebumps*"

10:29: Dawkins: "The evolutionary perspective makes you realize that it's a sheer accident that we able to set up a morality that is so human-centred." (the accident being that the intermediate species between ourselves and other animals happen to be extinct).

10:27: I'm pretty sure Dawkins just called my cousin a chimp. Missed key words I think, thanks to a noisy film crew next to me.

10:21: The annoying-former MP Evan Harris on Twitter: "Richard Dawkins at #tamlondon refers to 'Science is the new sex' slogan. *Ripple of joy from assembled geeks*"

10:18: Continuing the Classics theme, Richard Dawkins points out that evolution is very much the story of who we are. As the Classics tell us about recent history, evolution tells us the stories of our million-times-great grandparents, who apparently did a lot of swimming.

10:15: Dawkins: "Science is the poetry of reality." He's good. Somebody should get him a literary agent, I reckon he'd make a good writer.

10:14: Comrade Gimpy on Twitter: "Hope the champagne skeptics at #tamlondon are having fun. It must be nice to afford £200 tickets at a time when many are facing unemployment"

Which raises the question: why do I have no champagne? Who is hiding all the champagne? Anyone who brings champagne to the blogging table at the back of the room gets a free mention. I'm not proud.

10:10: The theme of Dawkins' talk is that he believes evolution as a subject should be elevated to the same status in education that the classics used to have. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments...

10:07: Now the Gods of lighting are pissed at me too. Fortunately the dark isn't a problem as I can tchou tpey.

10:02:Dawkins: "My subject, evolution, is under threat - especially in America. ... I want to come out fighting."

10:01:Richard Wiseman introduces Richard Dawkins by explaining through the magic of maths why Teletubbies are evil. Frankly, I think we all knew.

09:58: Susan Blackmore's talk has just finished. Apologies for not bringing more of it to you, but the Gods of the internet have not been smiling on me this morning (nor for that matter the Gods of the Circle Line). It was a fascinating talk though, exploring how the desperation to show that psychic powers are real can lead to bias and hostility to those who demonstrate otherwise. Next up, Richard Dawkins.

09:56: A quick reminder, you can follow the conference on Twitter using the hashtag #tamlondon, and you can harrass me at @mjrobbins.

09:55:Our first speaker of the day has been Susan Blackmore, who has been speaking about her long quest to prove that paranormal phenomena are real, a quest which went so well that she's now a prominent skeptic.

Susan Blackmore, erstwhile believer in the paranormal, but not happily a skeptic (or we'd be witnessing Randi's first fight of the day).

09:50: So, a brief recap now the internet is alive again. Richard Wiseman is hosting the conference. First up, James Randi gave a feisty introductory talk in which he declared his health problems of last year were behind him, and that he was ready to basically fight any and all quacks and charlatans unlucky enough to share a room with him. His strength is in his glorious beard, which you can see below courtesy of Kelly Haddow.

James Randi ready for action.

09:43: Welcome back for Day One of The Amazing Meeting! Unfortunately most of the Amazing seems to have been used up for the meeting itself, leaving very little Amazing left for the wireless internet access, so apologies for the slightly late start. I'll try and catch up with the last 40 mins now...

Friday: Build-up

17:48: So after a long and sweaty trip I've arrived at the Hilton, a building which looks like God got pissed off with a Rubix Cube, and smashed it into Edgeware Road in a bit of a sulk. The beer is nearly a fiver, but it comes with a tray of bar snacks, so I can pretend I've had a bargain dinner.

15:37: Probably the most riveting story of the day has been science comedian Dean Burnett's coach trip from Cardiff to London. His latest update: "Still on the coach on the way to #TAMLondon. Nothing to report." It's edge-of-the-seat stuff.

14:47: After a tense hour or so in which almost two people were following the action on Twitter, Michael Marshall has apparently escaped the clutches of the Scientologists, describing them as "well-meaning but a bit vacuous."

14:41 PLUG:Little Atoms, a radio show about science and skepticism at Resonance FM (and online) will have a TAM special featuring interviews with some of the stars at TAM London, and Josie Long and Neil Denny interviewing Alan Moore. It's this Friday evening at seven o'clock.

And remember, you can plug your events/blogs or frankly pretty much anything here in exchange for beer and snacks delivered to the media table this weekend, because I have no shame.

I'm proud to host the official live blog from The Amazing Meeting: London, Britain's biggest and most entertainingest celebration of science and critical thinking here in the heart of London this weekend; featuring Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Stephen Fry, Robin Ince, Alan Moore, PZ Myers, Cory Doctorow, Tim Minchin, Richard Wiseman, Simon Singh, and a host of other witty, sparkling and rational-minded stars.

Over the weekend I'll be bringing you almost 18 hours of live blogging, with textual commentary from me, audio clip updates from The Pod Delusion's James O'Malley, photos from Kelly Haddow and others, as well as keeping an eye on Twitter (the hashtag is #tamlondon, and I'm @mjrobbins).

So if you're not at the conference this weekend, sit back and enjoy the coverage. And if you are, bear in mind that people who bring beer or snacks to the media table will get a mention here, and possibly a blog pimp.

The Guardian's science blog network hosts talented writers who are experts in their fields, from mathematics, particle physics and astronomy to neuroscience, science policy and psychology. By giving them the freedom to write on whatever subjects they choose – without editorial interference – they broaden and deepen our coverage of scientific research and debate